Commentary on My Catholic Faith: Religion and the End of Man

 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. This writing shall begin my series of commentaries on each chapter or article of the catechism book titled “My Catholic Faith”. This catechism was recommended to me by a friend. The rules of commentary is simple, since I can only comment using Natural Revelation as my interpretive tool, then I cannot use Supernatural Revelation which I already know beforehand as an interpretive tool. However, the Revelatory System builds up and as I progress through the book, I can use prior commentaries along with Natural Revelation to explain next chapters. In this first commentary I shall comment on the first chapter titled “Religion and the End of Man.”

Before I write anything else, I also want to write that this commentary is solely commentary, and not repeating the content of the book and then commenting. Man must go to God for his happiness because God is precisely the objective goodness and happiness which will satisfy all rational creatures as long as they desire God. Man is part of creation and is such from God, and since he is part of creation then he belongs to God. I have demonstrated by reason that the world, including us comes from God, and that God creates everything for one particular reason, to share in His goodness. How do we share in the goodness of God? Precisely through knowledge, love, and service towards God.

It is revealed in this chapter that our true life is life after death. We can infer that this piece of revelation declares that we have an immortal aspect and a mortal aspect to our being. The mortal aspect is our body, while the immortal aspect is our “self” (I cannot use the term “soul” as it has not been revealed formally.) The self rises to heaven to meet God and receive the ultimate Supernatural Revelation, that is God Himself “face-to-face”. As of now I shall let this be part of Supernatural Revelation, yet it can be explained through Natural Revelation the way I understand it.

We have certain duties to God not for His Good, for He lacks no Good, but our duties to God are simply our duties to our happiness. The way this is done is through religion. Religion is practiced by belief in all Revelation, and carry out that belief or practice that belief, in other words practice the duties we owe to God and His commandments. It is insufficient to know only, as the devil, a newly revealed entity, possess perfect knowledge of God but no religion. We infer that the devil is an entity of evil as it is against God by not obeying God. It logically follows that religion is about the will and action, not feeling, as it is precisely the carrying out of our duties to God and His commandments.

We have no choice if we desire to pursue God as our only goodness but to practice religion. Through religion we practice knowledge, love, and service of God, which all is for our benefit and not God’s. For God is objective goodness, then nothing else can actually satisfy the rational being that is humans. Earthly riches, honors, and pleasures are useless and vain in comparison to God Himself. As God is the Perfection of Goodness, whereas the earthly goods are mere shadows of dust compared to God.

It is revealed to us that in the order of Supernatural Revelation, the practice of religion is taught by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who teaches us through the Church. This study taught by Christ is the study of religion and is the most important study a person can take. As it is the only way man can attain God. Neglecting this study is damaging not only in the next life but also this life which leads to a disintegration of moral order in the individual and eventually in society, as morality concerns with what is Good and God is precisely what is Good. Earthly knowledge on its own is useless, only the knowledge of God has true merit in our goodness.

It is revealed to us that we need to listen to a good teacher to study religion. Whether we read the catechism or we listen to someone directly, it is reasonably certain that we must be told by someone else competent enough to deliver the study of religion in a sufficient quality so we understand religion and are able to practice it well that we finally reach God. There are people who advocate against the study of religion, that is free thinkers, agnostics, skeptics, and rationalists. They claim all problems can be solved by intellect alone without the necessity of authority. Yet it is demonstrable that our human intellect is insufficient naturally to capture the totality of Divine Revelation. There has to be a Supernatural Revelation grounded in the Natural Revelation.

Freedom of thought is against reason, so long we still put our trust in reason. As truth necessarily limits the intellect and the thought, such that there is no real freedom of thought. Attempting to practice actual freedom of thought will result in a failure in reaching God. For God is the Truth, and the Truth is partially within the purview of reason. In the natural order, Reason is the path to God. We must pass through the Natural Revelation first before we can reach Supernatural Revelation, failure to fulfill Natural Revelation logically implies a failure to reach Supernatural Revelation and so a total failure of reaching God. The reasonable man must find out which authority must he submit to, he must discover the Law, and only through the study of Religion will he discover the fundamental Law. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.